


Close to Me

by pinesmabel99



Series: Two Faced Coin [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-22 19:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19987849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinesmabel99/pseuds/pinesmabel99
Summary: Naruto is an optimist through and through. In fact, he's been daydreaming of a future with his girlfriend. Hinata is a pessimist, her mind is stuck in the past and the darkness of it. Yet, isn't love both light and dark?





	Close to Me

“How about-”

  
“No.” Sakura interrupts without hesitation. 

Naruto glares at the pink haired medic. “I didn’t finish my thought.”

“No need, Naruto. I’m certain your plan was too simple for this. We have to think bigger and better, of which your mind isn’t capable of.” Sai easily chimes in with that odd tilting smile he has grown to use around his friends.

Sakura giggles. “And Hinata deserves better than your simpleton brain, Village Hero.” She teases and pokes his arm. They both laughed.

Naruto wasn’t pleased but the sight of his friends being happy, despite the horrors and bloodshed they went through, it was comforting. If only they stopped making fun of his inept ability to romance his girlfriend. Why does Hinata love him again? It’s a question he can’t answer even until now.

He pointed his chopsticks at them in a threatening manner that any shinobi could easily handle. The day is warm and sunny, people went through their mundane lives while Naruto is having a breakdown as his friends ate ramen with him and served unhelpful in his dilemma.

“Sai you bastard, you’re supposed to help me! Why do you think I dragged your weird ass here? To endure your odd findings in the research books you read? Hardly!” His hands wildly gestured to the tiny stall of the best (mostly because he’s horribly biased) ramen place in the entire world. No of _all_ worlds!

“He is absolutely right.” Sai whispers to Sakura in a loud voice. “He _does_ need our help.”

“Gramps, I think I need new friends. They’re too mean to me!” He pouts.

Teuchi’s bellowing laughter made his daughter and Naruto’s friends laugh once more. “Ah, come on, they’re my valued customers. I can’t, as a chef and a man of integrity, kick them out.”

“Yeah, thanks for the free lunch!” Sakura pipes in with a wave of her hand.

“No but seriously, do better. Romance her so much it’s like you want to get married then divorce her just so you guys can get married again.” Sakura advised in a wise tone that the men didn’t catch on. 

“That seems unnecessary. Why not just renew your vows or go to another honeymoon?” Sai commented with genuine and comical confusion written across his face. “Is this why Ino is better at romance between the two of you?”

Technically, it makes sense as the Yamanakas own the beloved flower shop.It’s renowned for encouraging romance, for decorating the graves of the brave and deceased soldiers, and for brightening up one’s lonely and cold home. Naruto knows to Sai, it makes perfect sense. 

But this is Sakura, the complicated best friend and constant bickering partner of the blond. And throw in an infamously short temper, Sakura is one deadly woman to deal with. 

When Sakura cracked her knuckles, her eyes of gleaming grass hardened like a bottle ready to burst, Naruto jumps out of his seat. 

“Sakura-chan-” He slowly began in a reluctant tone. 

“Sai, you goddamn-”

“-I thought we were here because Naruto wanted to propose and-”

Ayame barely flinched at the chaotic scene in front of her. She smiles at her dad, a secret glance of reminiscing. And they’re quite used to brawls seeing as they live in a village that fosters and trains ninjas. 

“Do fight _outside_ of the stall, guys.” She hums as she turns around, ready to cook the orders they’ve received.

A normal business day in Konoha. 

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

_This isn’t real. This is a nightmare._

But like any other shinobi, Hinata learns a battlefield is both of those things. It’s a grotesque nightmare her mind can’t grasp human’s innate urge for carnage. That somehow, stepping over your comrades corpse and your body aches with grief and confusion, this will all lead to peace of their times.

She detaches herself from the slaughter around her, the distant pleas and screams of dying people bouncing in her mind and it’s a miracle she could still defend herself with the true and merciless exposure to warfare.

Father would think of her as a failure if he knew her knees trembled at the sight of dead bodies scattered on the barren land. Her heart bleeds for them, her body spins and dodges attacks and her hands hold weapons and the power of her clan. 

She has to fight with a jittery heart and her eyes straining in a way that people of their village have praised her name. 

But then, her cousin drops dead in front of her, protecting the man she loves. 

The cacophonous violence shifts to another part of her that doesn’t care. Because not even a foot from her, Neji’s pale body is pierced by those charka poles. 

It’s a horrid reminder of when Naruto was pinned by Pein. But back then, she had an astoundingly asinine chance to save him. This, her rough and dirtied palm flies to her mouth, to hold back the shrill screams itching her throat, to not contribute to the others screaming for another day to live, to see another sunset with their friends. 

Once, she thought death would fear her formidable cousin, the genius of their clan. Her fear of him morphed into a powerful feeling of awe, of seeing him in a different and better light. 

Hinata learns that death isn’t scared of anyone. Death holds everyone in its palms and only trucks people into living hopeful of a long life. So it can remind them the power of that belongs to death; the ultimate decider of things. 

Cold tears wash the dirt off her cheeks and drip down her chin. Her hands are cold and her mind is blank. 

Hinata thought Neji would live long enough to see Hanabi be their clan leader. The three of them, drinking tea after they spar, as she and Neji would laugh at Hanabi’s jokes. 

If anyone had told her she’d outlive Neji in a war, Hinata would distance herself from the madman. _He is the strongest out of the two of us. That’s impossible!_ She’d think and shake her head.

But this war is beyond anyone’s scope and understanding. This is an _impossible_ war and they have to win it.

She stares at Neji, her perfect and aloof and intelligent cousin, crismon blood soaking the ground. 

In this nightmare, she cradles his head on her lap, her hands are painted wih his blood. And she screams.

The warmth on her skin woke her up; in a sea of expensive bedsheets, her heart racing, and the heat of Suna makes her cold, tear streaked cheeks more obvious. Her trembling hand clenches on the loose shirt she wore to bed.

The guilt, fear, and sadness fill her lungs. She thinks if she fists the sheets hard enough she can remember how to breathe again. _In the way my cousin will never do again._

Loneliness is something she’s used to. Not the sort Sasuke would do, but an echo in her chest in the presence of the perpetually unimpressed Hyuga Elders, standing beside her favored sister, and in the noisy classroom back at the Academy.

If Shino and Kiba aren’t her teammates, she secretly thinks the boys wouldn’t talk to her.

But they became teammates. She branhced out and hangout with the girls, wild and everything that a lady isn’t supposed to behave. That’s what she is though, a lady in everyone’s eyes; quiet, reserved, and trapped in her world of clan politics and missions.

Then Naruto miraculously loves her back. 

Hinata forgot the meaning of loneliness for years now, would hug her younger self and assure the stuttering girl that her life would be lovely and fruitful than what it is in her moment.

But Lord Sixth sent her on this solo mission and the isolation she abandoned came back with claws, snarling grumble, and vicious intent. 

The guest room felt too large for such a small person. _I’ve always belittled myself when I’m alone._

She stares at her palms, lines running along her alabaster skin, the texture hasn’t changed from knowing how to handle kunais and to attack an enemy with a rush of charka pushed out of them.

For a moment, she’s so _sure_ her hands are splashed with red, the colour so stark against her skin, a whimper dripped down her lips.

She wished Naruto was here with her. She has never said this to anyone but that boisterous blond guy is her private and walking sunshine. 

She _needs_ his bright smile, so luminous they burn away the dark thoughts that stick to her mind like tar. His love cloaks her in the similar manner a Jinchuriki would possess. 

She’s always been selfish about him. 

The knocks on her bedroom door felt louder in her ears, like bomb dropping, like a short shout of a dying man before his heart gives out.

Hinata bites her lip until iron explodes in her tongue. 

“Breakfast for the Konoha guest, Hyûga-sama.” 

She can’t reply, can’t even recall what the nightmare was about. 

———————

Naruto waits for Hinata’s report to be finished. 

He leans on the wall, fingers drumming as he patiently anticipates his girlfriend exiting the Hokage’s office. When she does, he hugs her tight, chin affectionately rubbing on top of her head and his fingers digging into the softness of her hips. 

“I missed you.” Hinata’s voice is muffled as she buries her face into his hoodie.

Naruto frowns, not liking the slight shake of her voice. He pulls away but he pauses when he feels her hands subtly stop him.

_What happened in the mission?_ There wasn’t any conflict, like how his irrational fears taunt him of when he’s alone. She wasn’t even injured, not needing a swift medical checkup. 

“I missed you too, hime.” He breathes out, rubbing his palm on the elegant curve of her spine and he presses his nose into her hair. _Lavender and something so sweet that’s so her._ “I’ll drop you off at the compound and-“

“No.”

“No?” He didn’t mean to sound puzzled but this has been their routine since he pulled his head out of his ass and loved her.

It’s an obvious attempt to tame the unrelenting and irrational urge to protect her and to make sure that when he visits her the next day, she’d be there waiting for him. That she didn’t slip away in the night, playing hero and to leave him alone with a selfless reason that Naruto can’t get mad.

She will never leave, that’s what she said to him. She will return to him no matter what and he trusts her in a manner he has never been vulnerable with anyone else.

Sai is correct. He is an idiot in love.

Hinata shoots him a look of regret and he could tell an apology hangs on her pink tongue.

“I mean, yeah sure! I don’t mind you know!” Naruto hastily replies, stirring his subdued girlfriend to the nearest exit. 

While he pulls an unresistant Hinata to his side, he throws a cautious glance over his shoulder, at the room where his sensei is in. 

————————-

“So you wastes of space somehow helped me and I just want to say, thank you.” Naruto professed at his teammates, well into the afternoon, with tea cups on their table and plates of snacks. 

“I liked it better when he treated us to ramen.” Sakura dramatically sighs.

Sai nods, in all serious and Naruto will never umderstand his thought process. “But I can’t decide on which is better; ramen or tea?”

Sakura and Nauto gasps in feign offense. 

“Tea.”

“Ramen!”

The childhood friends jokingly glared at each other as the former ANBU member takes out his notebook and a charcoal pencil. 

“Uzumaki Naruto, in a tea house. Is he lost?” Kiba’s taunting voice was near the entrance. His feet are apart, arms tight across his chest, and his lips are flat.

He would’ve invited him and Shino over but he hesitates at their protective stance. Even Akamaru lightly crouches like he intends to pounce.

“Hey guys…” Sakura greeted. “Want to join us?” 

“No, because Hin-“

Kina roughly elbows his teammate and the glare doesn’t simmer down. “Bye.” He curtly bites out and they disappear in the next corner.

His friends stare at him without any accusations or malice just open curiosity and concern. Its a refreshing change from his childhood.

“Is that why you’re proposing to her?” Sai inquires.

“What?” Naruto asks, the scene still reeling in his head. Did he do something wrong for the boys to act overtly cold towards him?

“You want to propose and marry her as reconciliation for your fights, no? I don’t think thats a good idea.” Sai clarifies with a bob of his head. “I read this book that explains communication is the best solution to any problem.”

Sakura’s eyebrows cinched and she’s frowning now. “What do you guys even argue about?” She wonders. 

Its a fair question seeing as how they’re frequently teased at being the “perfect couple of Konoha”. He only likes it because the given title makes the Hyuga blush and adorably deny it in her state of flustered.

“We didn’t fight! She’s just been busy training and sleeping a lot lately.” He explains and though its meant to be a denial; its an answer in itself. 

She’s been avoiding him. And he doesn’t know why. 

———————-

“I’m a horrible person.” Hinata announces to her former sensei. 

Kurenai’s ruby red eyes narrowed, her eyebrow bent to an arch and she presses her lips. “We all have good and bad days, Hinata.” She answers. 

Hinata shakes her head. “How can I be good when I’m happy and my cousin is six feet under?” Her voice eerily resembles the young girl before the Chunin Exams; fragile and anxious. It was unbecoming, unraveling years of her carefully cultivated self-confidence.

The older woman reaches out, her hands over the distressed girl. “That is why you should try to be happy. Life is better spent with love than anything else.” 

“Aren’t I selfish? He isn’t here anymore-“

“You’re wrong, Hinata.” Kurenaï corrected as she sips her tea. 

“What?”

“Your cousin resides in our memories, in your heart and those that loves him. He will never leave you.” She advises, like she’s cooing her child to sleep with a dreamy tone. 

Hinata’s lower lip quivers, the brittle look on her polished lilac eyes resembled hairline fractures on glass just before it shatters into pieces. Sadness on her smooth face doesn’t blend well with her innately kind almost smiling mouth and her bright eyed look at everything.

“Every time I visit his grave, all I can do replace the flowers and pretend his corpse can, can hear my nonsense.” She bows her head as though she’s ashamed of pouring all of this to a widow. “Its almost a year now but it feels like yesterday.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding your teammates and your boyfriend?” Kurenai hums but her thumb rubs at a comfortable pace on Hinata’s cold skin.

“I don’t want to burden them.” She whispers.

“Bonds are never meant to anchor you down. They strengthen you, give you purpose and love. These bonds we have is made out of trust and care.” Her former sensei muses and she pats Hinata’s cheek. “The meaning of life isn’t found in death. Its in friends and love.” 

Hinata cries softly. “Thank you.” She stammered out in a wobbly tone. 

———————

The knock on his door makes him jump out of his bed. Peeking through the hole, he grins at seeing Hinata. Opening the door, she lifts up a package.

“Oh my _God_ , I’m so lucky.” Naruto breathes, accepting the Ichikary takeouts and welcomes her in his shitty apartment. 

She laughs. “I was around and I figured we could eat together. You are never one to deny ramen.” She pokes his stomach and he delights in her sudden brightened mood.

But its not enough to make him forget the past weeks of cold shoulders, feeble exuses, and her teammates and her sister subtly blaming him. 

They sit down on his small and round dining table. 

“Hinata, what happened?” He asks, eyeing her with those azure blue eyes that resembled the sea underneath the sun. He scoots closer to her and gives a small smile.

She looks away, hands fidgeting with the purple hoodie she wears. “I’m sorry for that. I just…” 

At this, her side profile, Naruto could study the artistic slope of her nose that even Sai wouldn’t be able to fully do justice on paper. Her thick lashes brush on her high cheeks. Clearly, just from the looks of her, the elite social status she’s born into, it perfectly fits her like a crown on one’s head.

“I missed Neji-niisan.” Hinata’s hushed confession made his heart clenched in pain. At knowing she distanced herself because, at most, she didn’t want tontrouble her friends. “I was so happy with my life lately then I had this nightmare. It kept coming back like, like it was a sign that I _shouldn’t_ be so careless and happy. He, he _died._ He’s dead. _”_

Hinata crying on his living room is something at par with a criminal offense. 

Naruto plops her on his lap, ramen being uncharacteristically forgotten. He buries his face at the back of her neck, bringing his arms around to make sure not even a piece of paper can pass through them. 

He lost a lot of people too. Selfless hereos that are considered hereos by anyone who knows their name. But to him, they’re family and he misses them everyday. 

“You’ll miss him for the rest of your life, I think. The pain of it will never fade but you don’t have to be alone in this.” He shifts her face towards him, wet cheeks, fragile eyes, and a look that will forever haunt him. “Your family, friends, and me, we’re here for you. We love you and we’ll manage, yeah?” 

“I love you.” Hinata whispers across his skin, the three words sinking deep in his veins and he feels euphoric hearing it from the one person who loved him from the start. 

“I love you too, so much.” He cups her cheek and she leans on his palm. Moving forward, he kisses her forehead. “I have an insane idea.”

Hinata rests her head on his shoulder, her nimble fingers caressing his large hands. “Hmm?”

“Well, if we get married and live together in our own home, you’d never have to be lonely. I’d be honored to be your annoyingly clingy husband.” He divulges in a casual tone but the weight of his words makes him hold his breath, unsure of how unsure how she would react. 

“I don’t want you to be lonely too. Its a horrid thing.” Hinata replies, looking up at him in the brightest beam he has ever seen. 

They hug and eat dinner. Naruto talks of silly things and Hinata giggles and kisses his cheek. 

Tonight with Hinata pressed to his side, because no way is he allowing her to sleep alone from now on, he will dream of their wedding until it becomes their reality. 

**Author's Note:**

> let me just say i've always wanted to write about hinata mourning over neji. i try to not butcher anyone here. i hope its alright. comments and kudos are much appreciated


End file.
